Sometimes it’s possible to identify
the sender of such an e-mail. I decided to try to identify this
guy, so in Mac OS X I opened the Terminal application (while on-line)
and typed “whois 203.131.68.250”. Here is the relevant part of
my Terminal (also known as the Shell, or the Unix Command Line) session:
[iMac:~] owner% whois 203.131.68.250
inetnum: 203.131.68.248 - 203.131.68.255
netname: NETSOLIC-PH
descr: Network Solutions Interfaces Corporation
descr: U301 Aguirre Bldg 812 A Arnaiz Ave Makati
country: PH
admin-c: RB82-AP
tech-c: RB82-AP
mnt-by: MAINT-PH-INFOCOM
changed: framirez@info.com.ph 20011002
status: ASSIGNED NON-PORTABLE
source: APNIC
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20020827
person: Ric Barasi
address: U301 Aguirre Bldg 812 A Arnaiz Ave Makati
country: PH
phone: +63-2-817-4157
fax-no: +63-2-892-4820
e-mail: rbarasi@nsi.com.ph
So—a Mr. Ric Barasi, whose office is in the upscale
Manila suburb of Makati, Republic of the Philippines, owns the block
of IP addresses from 203.131.68.248 to 203.131.68.255. Either Mr.
Barasi is the perpetrator of this scam or he has had his Windows®
network hijacked by someone else who is using it without Mr. Barasi’s
knowledge. We will pursue this no further, but if you wish to phone,
fax, or e-mail Mr. Barasi, the necessary information is
publicly available, as shown above. Please note that I did not resort
to trickery or “hacking” or other questionable means
to obtain the above information; a
“whois” search is the standard method of learning who
owns an Internet domain or IP address.
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